The Art of Plastic Waste and Green Space

I live on the edge of Propsect Park (the Brooklyn quartered Olmstead and Vaux masterpiece, for you unfamiliar readers). This location affords me the privilege of easy access to green, open space and I take advantage of this privilege often. On the Mondays that follow beautiful weekend weather, however, I usually avoid strolling across the sunny lawns or rambling along the lily-pad ponds. On these days the trash bins are overflowing, plastic bottles float on waterways, and my dog finds an endless supply of chicken bones to choke on. It seems that New Yorkers love to frolic in their green spaces when weather permits and a surge in their numbers can inevitably be read from the trash they leave behind.

Next weekend, the NYC-based design agency MSLK will be launching an installation that gets at this phenomenon brilliantly. “Watershed” will be a conspicuous display of plastic bottle consumption in the U.S. It features 1,500 bottles–the number consumed every second in the states–strung together and connected in all sorts of crazy ways (see the video of the project’s construction below). It will be shown from June 12-14 as part of the Figment Art Festival out on Governors Island: NYC’s most unique green space. Free ferries will be running out to this car-free, history-rich, and bike-laned oasis during the event and for the rest of the summer. The venue alone provides sufficient reason to plan a group outing, while the festival provides impetus to get there early.

If you can’t make it out next weekend, don’t worry. We (the Institute for Sustainable Cities) will be providing you with plenty of other excuses to ferry out to Governor’s Island this summer with our 4th annual Exhibit and Lecture Series: “Sustainable Living for Sustainable Cities.” Take a look at our amazing line-up and start marking your calendars for the Saturday’s that interest you most!